European Union

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dodds]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point to the effects if the EU had targeted the financial services sector, unfairly penalising the UK. The tax revenues of which he speaks are enormous and the contribution to employment—not just directly—is significant for the UK. There are arguments for measures such as the Tobin tax, but they have to be applied universally. The UK alone should not be picked out.

Some say that the Prime Minister’s action will cost jobs and damage British business, but the EU’s share of world trade is decreasing. Who believes that the EU would want to stop exporting to a market of some 60 million people, or inhibit trade that would cost the jobs of millions of people in the EU? That simply will not happen. All the scaremongering about that, as in the past, is not based on economic reality.

We must guard against the inevitable pressure that will come—and is already coming—behind the scenes from diplomats, mandarins and others who will try to drag the Prime Minister away from his current stance and use the back door to achieve the UK’s acquiescence. The Prime Minister has already hinted at some sort of compromise on the desire of the euro-plus countries to use the EU institutions. He needs to be careful about that. If they want to do that, we need to ask what they are prepared to do for the UK in return. I hope the Prime Minister will not accede to the pressure being exerted to allow that to happen by the back door.

Of course, it is important to recognise the limits of what has happened. As a result of what happened at the Council, 26 countries—or however many it will be in the end—cannot themselves implement agreements on financial services or other things that have an impact on the single market. That must be done through the single market Council. However, therein lies a problem. Yesterday in his statement the Prime Minister alluded a couple of times to the risks involved in the intergovernmental arrangement. As I said in my contribution yesterday, the very real risk is that other EU member states will gang up on the United Kingdom and outvote us through qualified majority voting.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is not the reality that nothing has changed with regard to financial services? Twenty-six cannot impose qualified majority voting; nor can 27. At the end of the day, therefore, the so-called veto was not a real veto, because 26 have gone ahead. The reality is that we still have the right to block changes in that respect under the Single European Act.

[Mr Dodds]

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. The Prime Minister is right to say that it would have been entirely wrong, without sufficient protections, to have a treaty that, as he put it, would have hard-wired the situation into the European Union treaties. The hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) alluded to protections, but QMV does not provide the UK with much of a protection. As has been said already in the debate, given some of the vindictive language being used in European capitals at the moment, we must be very careful indeed. It is clear, in my view, that the status quo cannot stand in the medium to long term.

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[Emma Reynolds]

First, had we been in government, we would not have been asleep at the wheel for the first nine months of this year. Secondly, we would have built alliances, not burned bridges, and we would not have found ourselves in a situation at the summit in which nobody agreed with us. We had no support from any of those member states.

It is clear that the Prime Minister spectacularly mishandled the summit by failing to prepare the ground, failing to talk to European leaders in advance and failing to build alliances. The Foreign Minister of Poland, until fairly recently one of our strongest allies, singled out the UK for criticism in a recent speech. It now transpires—[Interruption.] Conservative Members might be interested to hear about this. It now transpires that even our lead diplomat in Brussels, the British permanent representative, learned of the Government’s negotiating position only 48 hours before the summit. What a cack-handed way to prepare for important negotiations. No wonder the blame game has started in Whitehall between the Treasury and the Foreign Office.

[Mike Gapes]

My hon. Friend should also be aware that none of the ambassadors, based in London, of the other 26 European Union states knew in advance what the British Government were trying to get out of this summit. How on earth could they report back to their countries in advance what might be the necessary concessions to get agreement if they were not told in advance?

[Emma Reynolds]

As my hon. Friend has eloquently pointed out, the Government’s attempt to get agreement at the summit was amateur—they did no preparation. As a result of the Prime Minister walking out of negotiations, it is even more likely, not less, that vital British interests will not be taken into account when key economic decisions are taken at EU level. The eurozone 17 and the other nine non-eurozone countries will meet more frequently and take decisions that affect the UK, without the UK being in the room. How on earth do Conservative Members think that is a success? Without a voice, British business is more vulnerable to decisions that our Government are powerless to change or influence.

North Africa and the Near and Middle East

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of political developments and security in the Middle East, North Africa, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

It is a timely moment for this debate. Next month, as hon. Members know, it will be a year since the death of the fruit seller, Mohammed Bouazizi in Tunisia, which heralded the eruption of mass democracy movements across the middle east and north Africa, bringing the potential for significant advances in human rights and freedom, as well as, of course, risk and uncertainty. Supporting positive change and reducing instability in these areas is one of the highest priorities in British foreign policy, and is therefore an important subject for debate.

I wish to record my gratitude to the men and women of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and those who serve in the regions we are debating today or who support our efforts from London and in international institutions such as the United Nations and NATO. Their work over this last year has been outstanding, and we could not have done without them.

Over the last six months, the Foreign Office has been extremely active in rallying international action over Libya. Over the coming months, we will be pushing forward international policy on Somalia with equal energy, starting with a major conference hosted on 23 February in London by the Prime Minister. I want to concentrate my initial remarks on the horn of Africa and the Sahel, before turning to deal with north Africa and the middle east, which we so often debate and on which I have made many statements.

Tens of thousands of Somalis have died in recent months; a million are internally displaced and facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. The country is a scene of great human suffering, but it is also a base for piracy and terrorism, which exacerbate the country’s plight and threaten our own security. The transitional federal Government in Mogadishu need to succeed in making the necessary political progress to begin to stabilise the country.

We need a more effective international approach that addresses the root causes of the crisis. In our view, this requires a new inclusive political process; a coherent strategy to undermine al-Shabaab and tackle piracy; and economic support, humanitarian aid and assistance to the African Union Mission in Somalia—AMISOM.

The aim of the February conference in London will be to build agreement on such a reinforced international approach. We have been laying the groundwork for some time. My right hon. Friend the International Development Secretary visited Mogadishu in August—the first British Minister to set foot there since 1992—and on my visit to Ethiopia and to Kenya in July, I met the Somali Prime Minister and, separately, the President of Somaliland.

We are taking increased action on piracy through the use of naval assets as part of the international forces operating in the gulf of Aden, protecting the transit corridors and the wider Indian ocean; we are working with the shipping industry and are allowing armed guards on UK-flagged ships. We are also providing funding to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime to continue developing prisons and prosecution facilities on the ground in Somalia and in the wider horn of Africa, as well as operating bilateral transfer agreements, which will facilitate the transfer of suspected pirates back to Somalia to serve their sentences.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Foreign Secretary said that he had met members of the transitional Government and the leaders of Somaliland separately. Will he clarify the position of our Government in regard to the long-standing aspiration of people in Somaliland towards some form of self-government?

[Mr Hague]

I met those representatives separately for many reasons, including the fact that one set were in Ethiopia and the other set were in Kenya. Although we understand the wishes and desires of Somaliland, its leaders and its people, we have continued, to date, the policy of previous British Governments of not recognising it as a separate country. We think that the emphasis must be on trying to resolve the problems of Somalia as a whole. They are integrated problems, and we need an inclusive political process as well as the strategy to undermine al-Shabaab and effective action to deal with piracy. That must be our priority, and I do not think it right, at this moment, to change our policy on the recognition of Somaliland.

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[Mr Hague]

We have discussed that at some length, as the hon. Gentleman can imagine. The Prime Minister and I discussed it with Russian leaders, including President Medvedev, on our visit to Moscow a couple of months ago. We are in constant contact about it at the UN Security Council, as are our representatives there. I continue to believe that it would be right for the Security Council to address the issue and we will make further attempts to do so. Of course, passing any resolution will require a different attitude from Moscow.

[Mike Gapes]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I had better stop giving way to Members a second time, but I will do so once more.

[Mike Gapes]

The Foreign Secretary referred to the welcome decision by the Arab League, but I understand that at least two important neighbours of Syria— Lebanon and Iraq—have said that they will not impose sanctions. Is that because of the influence of Iran, through Hezbollah, and Iraqi political parties, and does he feel that Iran could play a very negative role in the process?

[Mr Hague]

I will move on to Iran shortly, but I absolutely feel that it plays a negative role in the process and has assisted the Syrian authorities in various ways to try to repress the Syrian population. It would certainly not be surprising if Iran was using its influence on some Arab countries to reduce the impact of any sanctions on Syria. Nevertheless, we should recognise that what the Arab League is doing is unprecedented. The vast majority of its members not only voted for it, but are now preparing to implement meaningful sanctions on a fellow member and colleague. That shows how seriously the Arab world takes the situation in Syria, which will have an impact on the Assad regime. Our Government’s goal is to give maximum support to Arab League efforts to persuade the President of Syria to end the violence while using every lever at our disposal to bring economic and diplomatic pressure to bear. We have supported successive rounds of EU sanctions that have banned the import of Syrian oil and targeted individuals responsible for the violence with asset freezes and travel bans. We are pressing ahead with plans for further sanctions on Syria at the EU Foreign Affairs Council later this week.

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[Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington) (Con)]

I begin by apologising for the fact that I will not be able to hear the winding-up speeches, but I look forward to reading them.

I agreed with the shadow Foreign Secretary’s observation that patterns are emerging in the Arab spring, and I wish to draw attention to one pattern that has not given risen to much comment but which is very significant. Although turmoil has affected every country in the Arab world from Morocco to the Gulf, it is significant that the greatest turmoil and the revolutions have taken place and dictators have fallen in the republics, whereas the monarchies, with the exception of Bahrain, despite experiencing significant disturbances, have not seen such substantial violence or attempts to overthrow the system.

It is worth asking why that might be. It is over-simplistic and incorrect simply to say, “It is to do with those countries that have oil and those that do not”, because clearly Morocco and Jordan have minimal amounts of oil while Libya has a great deal. I think that it is about legitimacy. I am not suggesting that there is antipathy towards republicanism as such in the republics of the Arab world or that there is a love for monarchy, but these are dictators who have acted cruelly, who achieved power by force—or, in the case of Assad, whose father took power by force—who have maintained it by the cruellest methods of despotism and who therefore have not earned their people’s respect.

Admittedly, the monarchies have not been democracies but authoritarian states, some of which have exercised their power in a way that we and many of their own people would consider unacceptable, but nevertheless in the eyes of a significant proportion of their own people they still have that legitimacy without which a modern Government cannot expect to survive.

[Mike Gapes]

I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman. Does he also accept that certainly in Jordan and Morocco there have been progressive improvements towards democracy—too slow perhaps and possibly temporary but nevertheless a reform process—which has not been the case in some of the other countries?

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

I was coming to that point. The hon. Gentleman is correct. There is something else that Jordan and Morocco have in common: both the King of Jordan and the King of Morocco claim descent from the Prophet, and many of their people accept the legitimacy of that claim. Furthermore, the King of Saudi Arabia does not call himself “King of Saudi Arabia” but “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques”—Mecca and Medina—to emphasise, as he would argue, his spiritual not simply secular role. But the hon. Gentleman is correct: the other phenomenon in many of these monarchies is that they have been prepared, however hesitantly, to begin the process of reform, which might help them to deal with their long-term problem.

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[Mrs Ellman]

The term Zionism means what it has always meant: a Jewish national movement for a Jewish national home in the state of Israel. It is Israel’s detractors who have perverted the meaning of the term Zionism and made it a term of abuse, in an attempt to delegitimise the very existence of the state.

[Mike Gapes]

I was going to comment on Hamas, but I think that has been dealt with by others. I can, however, confirm the point my hon. Friend makes about Zionism. I am not Jewish, but I have been denounced and vilified as “that Zionist MP” by various people simply on the basis that I support the two states position. That tactic is certainly used by some organisations and some activists in certain extremist groups as a way to try to change the narrative in British politics. It is very important that all of us who believe in the right of the state of Israel to exist alongside a Palestinian state make it very clear to these people in the various campaigns that it is unacceptable to use the term Zionist as a term of abuse. It is used as such against both Jewish people and non-Jews.

[Mrs Ellman]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and agree with what he said.

I am also increasingly concerned about the loose use of language, which is leading to a creeping anti-Semitism in this country and elsewhere, causing increasing concern among the Jewish community. I was extremely concerned to see on the website of the Liverpool Friends of Palestine a cartoon—this was viewed on 9 September—headed “The power of Zionists”. It depicts a stereotypical Jewish man—a man with a large hook nose holding a Jewish emblem in his hand—pointing to an American soldier under the heading, “Join the United States army” and at the bottom it says “and fight for Israel”. That cartoon could have come out of Nazi literature, given the depiction and the heading “The power of Zionists”. I was appalled to see that and although it has now been removed from the Liverpool Friends of Palestine website, I must ask how it came to be there and what kind of thought was behind it. I gather that it is not a solitary example of what is happening on websites of similar groups.

Some years ago, the New Statesman had a front cover with the big headline “A Kosher Conspiracy?” Underneath that headline was a cartoon depiction of a Jewish symbol—an Israeli Magen David—piercing the British Union Jack, among other things, thus raising the old anti-Semitic allegation that Jewish people are not sincere citizens of their country. After considerable controversy, and some weeks later, the editor said that he had no understanding of what he was doing when that was published, that he did not mean it to be done in the way it was done and that he did not know it was reminiscent of Nazi literature and old stereotypes, and he apologised for it. That occurred some years ago, but this loose language is now going rather further.

I read with increasing concern an article by Deborah Orr in The Guardian on 19 October about the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from his captivity with Hamas. After long, hard bargaining, the Israeli Government eventually decided that the only way they could secure his release was by accepting the proposed deal from Hamas that more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners should be released. The fact that the Israeli Government accepted that has been controversial in Israel for a lot of reasons, including the fact that among those 1,000 Palestinian prisoners released in exchange were extremely serious terrorists and murderers, including those who sent the bombs to the young people in the pizza parlours of Jerusalem and to the old people at the Passover service at the Park hotel in Netanya, and those responsible for many other atrocities. The Israeli Government felt that they should strike that deal because they felt that realistically it was the only way in which Gilad Shalit would be released.

I was appalled when I read Deborah Orr’s article in The Guardian, which was entitled “Is an Israeli life really more important than a Palestinian’s?” When talking about the background to the situation, she said:

“At the same time…there is something abject in their”—

the Israelis’—

“eagerness to accept a transfer that tacitly acknowledges what so many Zionists believe—that the lives of the chosen are of hugely greater consequence than those of their unfortunate neighbours.”

That is basic anti-Semitism.

I am sure that Deborah Orr is not anti-Semitic, and indeed, she later published an apology of sorts, in which she stated:

“Last week, I upset a lot of people by suggesting Zionists saw themselves as ‘chosen’. My words were badly chosen and poorly used, and I’m sorry for it.”

Deborah Orr did say that, but just as I was concerned a number of years ago when the New Statesman felt that it was perfectly in order to have the sort of front page it had—one headlined “A Kosher Conspiracy?” and questioning Jewish people’s loyalty to their country, the United Kingdom—I am concerned that Deborah Orr, not an anti-Semite, thought it was all right to write about Zionists in terms of the word “chosen” in that derogatory manner, when the Israeli Government had done all they could do to secure the release of a soldier. The conditions came from Hamas, not from the Israelis. These are all great warning signs that loose language is now causing more anti-Semitism to be around and to cause disquiet within British society.

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[Rory Stewart]

I agree absolutely, yet it was, to quote the Duke of Wellington, a “damn close run thing”. We stretched our military sinews and our diplomatic resources hard to achieve that success in Libya. We did it by pulling Dominic Asquith in from Egypt and John Jenkins; we gathered almost all the Arabists at our command to deal with one single country of 6 million people in north Africa.

[Mike Gapes]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s remarks about the overstretch in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Does he also recognise that we did what we did in Libya in conjunction with France, that the lead was taken by a number of European countries, working together, and that his vision, which goes back 150 to 200 years, is of a very different world? The future for British foreign policy is not just in the United Nations but in co-operation with our European partners.

[Rory Stewart]

I would agree absolutely if I did not fear that Europe itself is hollowing out its foreign services in exactly the same way as we have hollowed out ours. German diplomats, French diplomats and Italian diplomats recognise that they are pinned in their offices with 400 e-mails in their in-tray, unable to study languages, unable to get out into the rural areas or to collect the political intelligence on which their Governments depend. They are looking in dismay at an External Action Service that is clearly not delivering and they are looking to countries such as Britain for the inspiration and leadership that they might find it increasingly difficult to receive.

Look at what we face. So far, we have dealt with just the second division but we are now entering the premier league. We are looking at countries such as Syria, countries of astonishing complexity with Orthodox Christians, Catholic Christians, Druze, Sunni groups, Alawite groups, orthodox Shi’a groups, Yazidis on the border and Kurds in the north. We are looking at a country such as Egypt that is set fair to become a modern Pakistan on the edge of Europe: a country where the economy is faltering, the military is grabbing on to power and terrorism is appearing on the fringes. We look, too, at Iran, split between its rural and urban populations, with nuclear weapons being developed.

What do we have to put against that? What will happen when we move with our team from the second division into the premier league? Are we up to the job? The answer is that, in many ways we are not. We are in a bad situation. Due to duty of care regulations, our diplomats have become increasingly isolated and imprisoned in embassy compounds. It is increasingly difficult for a British diplomat in a country such as Afghanistan to spend a night in an Afghan village house and even to travel outside the embassy walls without booking a security team in advance. When we attempt to compensate for that, as we did in Iraq by relying on Iraqi local translators or employing Iraqi staff to perform the jobs that our diplomats were not permitted to do, we find ourselves the subject of a class action suit from a British law firm, arguing that we owe exactly the same duty of care to our Iraqi locally engaged staff that we owe to our British staff, thereby tying us up absolutely.

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[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) but I shall not go into Tuaregs and Tornados. I shall immediately go into the election that is taking place today in Egypt.

It seems that there is a large turnout for the election, with queues at polling stations. For most Egyptians it must have a similar impact to that of the first democratic elections that took place in South Africa after the end of apartheid—another large African country undergoing a process of transformation—but there are, of course, significant differences. The election in Egypt today is about establishing a constituent assembly, from which 100 people will be chosen to draft a constitution. That will be followed by a presidential election, the date of which has just, reluctantly, under pressure from the streets, been announced by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces—12 March next year.

We will not know the outcome of the elections until they are verified and adjudicated by lawyers, and the result will not be known until January. That is worrying. We saw from what happened in Afghanistan a year ago how legal challenges to elections and disputes about the validity of the vote and about candidatures can lead to great complications when a body is established. We have also seen in other countries disputed elections leading to severe delays. I am worried about that and other difficult processes that Egypt has to go through.

As has already been said, Egypt has a very large young population, high levels of youth unemployment and an economy that is in decline and could go into an even more serious decline because so much of the revenue is built upon tourism and foreign investment that may not come about because of the uncertainty and instability that are developing. At the same time, there are worrying developments in the nature of the political process that has been established.

There was a democratic election in Tunisia under a formula whereby 50% of the candidates had to be women. That led to an elected Parliament in Tunisia which reflects the fact that in Tunisian society under the previous regime women played an important role. There is much greater equality overtly between men and women in that country. Even though the Islamist party Ennahda has come out as the largest political grouping, there are some positive signs about the continuation of women’s role within the political process in Tunisia.

The same cannot be said of the situation that has developed in Egypt. A helpful research paper produced by the Library points out that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces in Egypt is distinctly conservative in its approach to women’s representation. Under the old electoral system in Egypt 64 parliamentary seats were reserved for women. That law was abolished by the military regime. In its place is a provision that every party list must include at least one woman. That is an extremely worrying development.

It has also been decided that there will be no requirement for any women’s representation on the committee that will be established to draft the constitution, and there is only one woman in the present Egyptian Cabinet of 28. That raises serious concerns about where Egypt will go after today’s elections and the constituent assembly that is established in future, and what kind of society there will be in the post-Mubarak era.

Further concerns have been expressed by many of the demonstrators in Tahrir square about religious tolerance and what might develop in the future in a country where a significant proportion of the population—more than 10%—are Coptic Christians. There has been a series of attacks on Christian places of worship and on Christian ceremonies. Other worrying developments include statements from some of the more extreme Islamist groups about the kind of society and kind of laws that will emerge and whether minorities will continue to be tolerated in Egyptian society.

The international community must be resolute. We should send clear messages to the newly elected Egyptian political establishment when it is announced and also to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that there are international standards that we expect a democratic Egypt to uphold, and that the international community’s response to the changes in Egypt will be shaped by the treatment of minorities and women in Egyptian society.

[Mr Leigh]

The plight of Christians in the middle east is desperate and many of our actions have made that plight far worse, particularly in Iran. What is happening to the Coptic Christians is very worrying. Does the hon. Gentleman think there is more that we in the west can do? Can a Christian west take more responsibility for the plight of Coptic Christians? What does he think we can realistically do and what pressure can we impose on an Egyptian Government? What is going on there is terrible.

[Mike Gapes]

At this moment we need to give the Egyptians the benefit of the doubt because the process is still developing. We should try to get groups from the United Kingdom and other Western European Union countries reflecting faith forums and diverse groups, including leading British Muslims, to go to Egypt, taking with them Jews and Christians to show diversity and tolerance and how we work together. We also need to talk to countries such as Turkey, where an Islamist-influenced political party, the AK party, is in power in a secular state and where religious minorities are treated with tolerance in Turkish society. I think that we should try to use our influence.

When the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Erdogan, went to Cairo to give advice, he seems to have been very strongly welcomed. Interestingly, there were large demonstrations in the streets when he arrived, but when he left, having made it clear that he wanted Egypt to remain a secular state rather than adopt an Islamist constitution, even though he was an Islamist, the demonstrations were much more muted. The message he sent the Muslim Brotherhood was not the message it wanted to hear. He said that he wanted a Prime Minister from an Islamist political party, but in a secular state. That was very important, and he should be praised for trying to show that the Turkish model is not just one in which Islamist parties can come to power and that democracy means leaders, after coming to power, having respect for women and minorities rather than imposing an intolerant form of society that does not respect diversity.

I would like to consider the revolutions that have been called the Arab spring. Had they taken place in summer, I suspect that we would refer to the Arab summer, but I am not sure that we would talk of the Arab winter. Nevertheless, the issues are now much more complicated than they appeared to be at the start of the year. We are in a situation in which we can be guided by history, which the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border mentioned in his contribution. Those of us who have studied the history of the 19th century will know that the revolutionary processes that took place in that century and at the end of the 18th century were not easy, were in some cases bloody and often led to years or even decades of turmoil. I suspect that what we are seeing in north Africa and the middle east and what we will see in the Gulf states could be such a period.

It is only 20 years since the transformation of central and eastern Europe after communism was lifted. The political formations that have taken power in some of those countries have at times been difficult to cope with and some very unpleasant organisations have since come out from under the stone. We have seen political parties that are overtly homophobic, racist and authoritarian, and some that are associated with admiration for the Waffen SS have been elected to Parliaments in countries such as Latvia, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland, yet all those countries have come through the process. They still face difficulties, but because of the European Union they have been able to become democratic, pluralistic countries in which there have been changes of power. Parties that were in power have lost it and oppositions have won power and then lost elections. That is what democracy means. Just because elections are beginning in Egypt does not mean that that country is already a democracy.

Similarly, although there has been an election in Tunisia, it is not yet a democracy. Democracy will be entrenched only when parties that win elections are thrown out of office and when there is respect for diversity, the rule of law and minorities. Some of these countries will have to learn that respect. We have seen the great difficulties in Iraq when the parties that fought the last election came to a standstill and there was no possibility of Mr Maliki and Mr Allawi agreeing on who should be Prime Minister. It took the Iraqis almost as long as the Belgians to form a Government because there was no tradition or understanding of how Government and opposition work within a pluralistic political culture. Ba’athism had destroyed that political culture.

If the revolution comes to Syria and the Ba’athist regime there is forced to leave or is overthrown, there will be an almighty, complicated mess to deal with. It will be extremely hard to achieve stability and a pluralistic society, given the diversity in Syria that has been mentioned, and we will need to be patient. We should not expect these countries rapidly to become models of democracy of the sort we have in this country and elsewhere in the EU.

[Laura Sandys]

I started working with the Iraqi opposition in 1993, and it was 10 years before Saddam Hussein was overthrown. As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, in many ways there is a more complicated patchwork of different communities in Syria, and I very much welcome the Government’s support for the Syrian opposition. Does he agree that that will require sensitive handling as we move forward so that we do not end up in a worse situation?

[Mike Gapes]

I agree. I think that we should be guided by some of Syria’s neighbours. The Arab League has made an unprecedented move towards imposing sanctions on the country. We should also listen to what the Turkish Government are saying. I had a meeting last week with the Turkish Foreign Minister while he was here and also heard the remarks of President Gul when he spoke to Members of both Houses in the Royal Robing Room. The situation in Syria is causing extreme alarm within Turkey and the Turkish Government have basically had enough of the way the Assad regime has lied to and misled them—my words, not Turkey’s—about the promises of reform that were not kept. Instead of reform, there has been brutality and repression. Turkey has now come to the same view that Britain, France, the United States and many other countries have come to: the Assad regime is no longer capable of being the agent of reform and it must go.

How the regime goes, in what circumstances and when are very difficult questions. We need to be sensitive to the fact that Iran is playing a destructive role in the region. As I mentioned in my earlier intervention on the Foreign Secretary, the Iranians have a significant relationship, through Hezbollah, with the Lebanese Government. They also have significant influence in the Iraqi political system through some of the Shi’a political parties in Iraq. It is significant that the two Arab League countries that have said that they will not impose sanctions on the Syrian regime are Lebanon and Iraq.

Iran will potentially play another destructive role. We have seen our country denounced in the Iranian Majlis and its vote calling for the expulsion of Dominic Chilcott, our excellent ambassador. We have been there before: a former nominated British ambassador to Iran, David Reddaway, was prevented from taking up his post many years ago; and a few years ago the royal garden party in Tehran was attacked from outside by people throwing rocks over the wall at the time when Geoffrey Adams was ambassador. A few years ago the Iranian revolutionary guards detained British naval personnel in the waters just off the coast of Iraq.

It is quite possible that the Iranian regime will now engage in a series of provocations and incidents in order to up the ante and gain for itself a diversion from its main problem, which is that it has been found out: Iran has been developing for many years a nuclear weapons programme, and the International Atomic Energy Agency, in its latest report, has confirmed that some nuclear enrichment and other nuclear activities have continued over recent years. But we should not therefore move easily into the dangerous area of saying, “Because the sanctions we have imposed so far have not worked, and because, despite those sanctions, the Iranian regime has continued to build up its nuclear programme potential, Iran is about to gain nuclear weapons and there are grounds for a pre-emptive military strike.”

I was encouraged by the remarks of the United States Defence Secretary, Leon Panetta, whom The Guardian reported on 11 November as saying that military action against Iran could have “unintended consequences”, and agreeing that such an attack would only delay its nuclear programme, rather than prevent it from obtaining a nuclear bomb. In these circumstances, talk of pre-emptive military action can do no more than strengthen the Iranian regime internally and weaken the democratic voice of the country’s young, dynamic population who do not like the theocratic cap that the regime has put on them.

Similar comments were made on 4 November in an interesting article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which noted that the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Barak favour military action against Iran in circumstances where Iran is about to obtain a nuclear bomb, but that three former chiefs of the defence staff in Israel do not, and that the former head of Mossad who retired earlier this year, Meir Dagan, has said that Israel would be “stupid” to launch an air attack on Iran.

That does not mean we should accept as “a good thing” Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon—absolutely not. Given the arms race that would be unleashed in the middle east, and given how countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Gulf states would secure the potential, through Pakistan, to obtain a nuclear weapon, it would be a very worrying development: a Sunni nuclear bomb to offset a Shi’a nuclear bomb. There are other ways of dealing with the situation.

I refer to an interesting article by Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, published a few days ago, stating how strengthening the IAEA inspection regime, and not imposing more and more sanctions that do not work but adopting a policy of more transparency, may be a more effective way of dealing with the immediate problem. The key to that is the IAEA’s additional protocol, which Iran has not yet signed, but which the international community, through UN Security Council resolutions, has called for.

We face a difficult period in Europe, but we are sometimes obsessed with our own problems. Compared with the difficulties of many hundreds of millions of people in the Arab world, our difficulties are insignificant. The people in north Africa and the middle east face a difficult transition on an uncharted course from authoritarian regimes to new democracies. They will need our help and solidarity. The European Union should do more through its neighbourhood programme and by other means, but our country does not have an insignificant role in the world. It has an important role, working with its partners and neighbours to ensure that the international community makes the right decisions and supports the right side in this democratic transition.

Judiciary and Fundamental Rights

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

I beg to move,

That this House takes note of Unnumbered Explanatory Memorandum of 7 July 2011, the European Union Common Position on Judiciary and Fundamental Rights (Negotiation Chapter 23), relating to EU enlargement: Croatia; and supports the Government’s decision to agree the Draft Common Position at COREPER on 29 June and to adopt formally that agreed position at European Council on 12 July.

This debate concerns the European Union’s common position on the judiciary and fundamental rights chapter—chapter 23—of the accession negotiations for Croatia. It also concerns the Government’s policy of agreeing that EU common position in Brussels in June and formally supporting its adoption at the Economic and Finance Council on 12 July. During the debate, I hope to bring the House up to date on some of the more recent developments in the Croatian accession process and on the various reports of the European Commission about the improvements that Croatia has made.

I shall start by addressing the more general question of enlargement before moving on to where Croatia fits within the process. The United Kingdom is, and has been from the start, a strong supporter of EU enlargement as an effective and dynamic agent of change. In a changing world in which economic and political weight is swinging eastwards, the European Union will remain strong only if it is outward-looking and continues to grow. Successive British Governments have believed that membership of the EU should be open to any European country that wants to join and meets the rigorous accession criteria.

There are three key arguments for our consistent, cross-party support in the House for the process of EU enlargement. The first such argument is one of principle. The European treaties make it clear that membership of the European Union is in principle available to any European country that wants to join and that meets the accession criteria. It is very hard to establish any reasonable ground on which we could say to Spain, Portugal or France that they should be a member of the European Union but to Croatia or another country of the Balkans or eastern Europe that they should not—if they meet the accession criteria. I stress that second element. Support in this country for enlargement goes back a long way. Some 23 years ago, in her Bruges speech of 1988, Margaret Thatcher declared, at time when it was not fashionable or even believable to do so, that it was important for everybody in Europe to remember that Prague, Warsaw and Budapest were also great European cities.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister also confirm that Istanbul is a European city and welcome the fact that President Gul of Turkey is here this week on an official visit? Does he look forward to the day when Turkey can also take its place in the European Union?

[Mr Lidington]

Yes, I certainly support what the hon. Gentleman has said. Labour and Conservative Governments alike have consistently taken the position that we support Turkey’s ambitions to join the European Union. That accession process has helped to drive both political and economic reform within Turkey, and we want to see further progress being made at the earliest possible date.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I shall try to be brief. I do not think that the accession of a democratic NATO ally, which has had a democratic change of Government and has been transformed as a country over the last 11 years since the death of Franjo Tudjman— a country that is dynamic, that has young people who are outward looking and want to be part of modern Europe, and a country that also has a very good football team and a manager in Slaven Bilic, who once played for West Ham United—is a country that should be held hostage for an internal debate in the Conservative party over Eurosceptic or Europhobic hostility.

I believe that we should welcome Croatia. An enormous transformation has taken place in the country over recent years, partly through its own efforts but also because of the aspiration to join the European Union. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) said some harsh things and some true things about what happened with Romania and Bulgaria, but I do not think that we should hold back Croatia on the basis that the country is like those two other countries were in 2006. It is not. Croatia is much more developed politically and in many other ways. It would not be right on account of some bad experiences before this new procedure was brought into effect to damage the Croatian aspiration.

I believe, too, that it is important in looking at these issues that we look at the context. We are not dealing with Croatia alone. What we are doing is sending a clear signal that it is not just Slovenia among the countries of the former Yugoslavia that can join the European Union, as we are open to all the other five states—Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo—and, indeed, to Albania. It has its own problems, but if we are to have the western Balkans stable, secure and developed with a community of trade and partnership, all those countries have to be in the European Union at some point. It would be very dangerous if there were a hole in part of southern Europe, with a country or several countries out of the political process, out of our politics and our pluralistic approach.

I say to the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) that the accession of Croatia will bring in a democratic, pluralistic, young and dynamic country that wants to be part of the modern European Union. The EU is still attractive to many people precisely because of that, and it is time that Members of all parties started to make that case to the British public for the future. We need a dynamic Europe; we need to look at Europe as an asset for this country, and we should stop getting obsessed and gazing at our own navel.

Middle East and North Africa

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

We always raise this issue with the emerging powers of the world. The position of such countries is generally not as favourable to sanctions, including on Iran, as our position and the general European and American position. Again, I hope that the detail of the IAEA report will increase the focus on the behaviour of Iran in countries such as Brazil and India.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Foreign Secretary will be aware that some countries believe that Britain and France should not have seats at the Security Council, but that there should be a European Union seat instead. Is he saying that when there is no consensus in the European Union and when Germany objects, we will in future abstain in the Security Council?

[Mr Hague]

No, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will never agree to an EU seat at the United Nations Security Council. It is important that British and French permanent membership is continued. Of course, there are many occasions on which we vote in different directions. However, on the middle east peace process, the EU has worked together to pursue a determined initiative in a united way, working with Cathy Ashton, so there is a premium on European unity being maintained on this issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bellingham]

I agree with my hon. Friend. CHOGM is an opportunity to ensure that the Commonwealth becomes a stronger force for promoting democratic values, human rights, the rule of law and, of course, equality and tolerance. That is why we warmly welcome the recommendations of the eminent persons group and the ministerial action group.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Government take this opportunity to congratulate the people of Tunisia on their free and fair democratic election of a constituent assembly today, praise them for the number of women elected and pledge to work with the democrats and all forces that were elected in Tunisia for a democratic and pluralistic future?

[Alistair Burt]

I am so glad there has been an opportunity to raise the matter. I would like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale) who took part in the observer process as a strong friend of Tunisia. Indeed, the elections appear to have passed off peacefully, with a huge turnout and engagement which confounded the critics. I am pleased that the United Kingdom was able to provide support in the form of capacity building through the election process. For the people of Tunisia, who in a way started what we have been living through for all these months, it has been very important to see it through to a determined election process. We congratulate them and look forward to the next stage, which is the not unfamiliar territory of putting together a coalition in order to take matters forward.

National Referendum on the European Union

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Hood (Lanark and Hamilton East) (Lab)]

I welcome this debate. For new Members in the new Parliament, this will be their first experience of discussing European issues. I have listened to a lot of debates on Europe over the years in this place and they have not changed very much. Of course, I do have some antecedence on European treaties as I was the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee and its predecessor for a total of 14 years. I honed my skills in chairmanship by keeping the nine Conservative members of a 16-member Committee from battling with and killing one another. I remember that the split was five pro-Europeans and four who described themselves as sceptics but who we knew were anti. The hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) was on that Committee before I joined it and he and I had many exchanges over the years. I respect his views but do not agree with them, and neither did the majority of the Conservatives in the early part of my European scrutiny days.

I have fond memories of our debates on the Maastricht treaty. Those of us who were here at that time will remember that a lot of Members on both sides of the House wore a badge of honour for the number of times they voted against a three-line Whip. The hon. Member for Stone will correct me if I am wrong, but I am sure that he topped 150-odd occasions of rebelling against the Government. I do not see much difference in the debate today.

I did not read anything over the weekend to pre-empt the debate that is any different from the debate all those years ago on the Maastricht treaty. I listened to the Prime Minister today, who said that he was against the decision not to give the people a vote on the Maastricht treaty. I do not know—the records may say, but I thought he was an adviser in the Treasury in those days, or it may have been just after that—but he was certainly involved in advising the Government of the day.

We should not forget that Mrs Thatcher gave us the single market and there was no referendum on that. It is the single market more than anything else that has impacted on how Europe works. Those who argue against the single market now were in the House supporting Mrs Thatcher when the measure went through without a referendum.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend mentioned Lady Thatcher. Is she not also the former Prime Minister who described referendums as the devices of demagogues and dictators?

[Mr Hood]

I may not be the historian that my hon. Friend gives me credit for, but I remember Mrs Thatcher saying a lot of things. Having been a miner on strike for 12 months during the 1984 miners strike, I have long memories of Mrs Thatcher’s contribution to democracy at that time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The agencies state that the food insecurity situation in the region is the most serious in the world today. We are doing a great deal. My right hon. Friend the International Development Secretary was there at the weekend and announced a further £52 million of aid. We are the second largest bilateral humanitarian donor to this region in the world, after the United States. On the longer-term issues, we are one of the foremost countries in the world in putting climate change at the heart of foreign policy considerations, and this is one of the reasons for that. The Department for International Development will give consideration to other longer-term measures that now need to be taken.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Foreign Secretary referred to the situation in Somalia. What is his assessment of the role of the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab militia, with which it seems that the aid agencies and the Governments are having to co-operate at some level to get assistance through to starving people? What does this mean for the long term?

[Mr Hague]

Of course, al-Shabaab’s role is entirely negative in Somalia, as the hon. Gentleman appreciates. It is good that AMISOM—the African Union Mission in Somalia—has made some good progress in recent months to secure Mogadishu. There is now a new Prime Minister of the transitional federal Government. I met him on my recent visit to Kenya and have encouraged him in his work. Al-Shabaab has a very negative role. It has previously refused assistance into the area, and that has probably made the situation even worse and driven more people out of Somalia into camps on the Kenyan border that now cannot take more people. It has indicated more recently that it will accept help from the agencies, which are now considering how to approach that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are very time-constrained. Brevity is of the essence.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is the Foreign Secretary aware of why his German counterpart went to Benghazi and said that the German Government were now recognising the transitional Government there? Does that represent a welcome shift in Germany’s position, given that the Germans abstained on Security Council resolution 1973 and opposed NATO action?

[Mr Hague]

Actually, Germany has been supportive of what we have been doing. Although, as the hon. Gentleman points out, Germany abstained in the Security Council in March, it has since then been part of the contact group, and the German Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, attended the London conference that I hosted at the end of March. Although Germany has not made a military contribution to the NATO effort, it has been helpful in many other ways and given political support to what we are doing. What the hon. Gentleman points out is further evidence of that consistent approach.

Middle East and North Africa

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

We can do many things, which we are doing. They include the following: in the case of the situation in Libya, reference to the International Criminal Court; in the case of many other countries, encouraging their Governments and domestic legal systems to take these problems seriously, and to bring about reconciliation through facing up to what has happened over recent months; and in the cases of regimes that are not listening to that, we are of course trying to intensify the pressure in other ways, as I have described. Our entire programme of encouraging civil society, human rights and the development of political parties is also in line with the strong participation of women in these societies.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

How can there be a comprehensive, inclusive national dialogue in Bahrain when secular Opposition leader Ibrahim Sharif is on trial, and moderate Wafaq MPs Matar Ibrahim Matar and Jawad Fairoz have been arrested and detained? Is it not time that they were released, so that they can take part in such a dialogue?

[Mr Hague]

Certainly I agree with the hon. Gentleman that a successful dialogue will have to be with senior representatives of the Opposition and in different circumstances, but that should not stop us trying to encourage that dialogue. The alternative policy to the one we are pursuing is to condemn all concerned and say there is no hope for dialogue. We have to encourage those on both sides of the divide in Bahrain who believe in dialogue to undertake it. Clearly, however, they are not starting from an advantageous position given all the things that have happened in recent months, including the things to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

BBC World Service

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Ottaway]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that India is of huge strategic importance to the United Kingdom. It is a rising power and a stated foreign policy priority. The World Service audience in India is some 11 million, which beats “EastEnders” any day. The estimated cost of reaching that audience is only £680,000 a year, which the producer of “EastEnders” would probably die for. I am not convinced, and I hope the House is not convinced, that losing that huge audience to save a bit over £0.5 million is worth it—and I am pleased that the Government agree in their reply to our report.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I accept that the Government say they are prepared to bring in some temporary measures whereby the World Service will provide limited hours in the Hindi service for a temporary period, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that the real solution is not temporary measures, but recognition that losing an audience of 10 million in India and a total loss of nearly 20 million to the World Service audience will reduce its share of the global audience so that it will no longer be the premier broadcaster internationally?

[Richard Ottaway]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his work in the Select Committee in preparing the report. He makes exactly the point I am about to make. I hope that the Government will accept the motion—I have reason to believe that they may well do—and when they conduct the review, the hon. Gentleman’s point is exactly the one they should be looking at.

I shall move on from India to China. BBC China has been struggling with the jamming of shortwave radio signals by the Chinese authorities for more than a decade. As a result, its impact has been lost. Despite that, witnesses told us that they continued to hold the service in high regard. Sometimes it may be jammed in cities, but not in rural areas. After the Szechuan earthquake of 2008, the local community tuned in to BBC shortwave so that they could find out what was happening with the relief efforts. Chinese listeners tuned in to the Nobel peace prize ceremony, which the media was banned from reporting.

In response, the World Service is refocusing its online provision to China. However, let me express a word of caution about the move to online services. Internet services can be turned off at any time by totalitarian regimes. A good example was seen in Egypt during the Arab uprising when some 80 internet providers were cut off overnight. The Chinese Government have published a strategy paper asserting their rights to censor the internet inside their own borders.

It is the cuts to the Arabic services that have caused the greatest concern. No embarrassment should attach to the World Service or the Government over this decision, which was made last December before the Arab uprisings in January of this year. The value of BBC Arabic services is highlighted by photographs—colleagues may have seen them—of protesters on the streets of Syria carrying placards saying “Thank you, BBC”. Across north Africa, only two radio stations are listened to: al-Jazeera and the World Service. I mean no disrespect to al-Jazeera, but in my judgement, the far more independent and therefore respected service is the World Service.

This is a region that requires quality journalism and news coverage. The Foreign Office has responded to recent events in the Arab world by diverting considerable resources to the region. It has expressed its surprise over the reduction in World Service output—I hope that surprise will work its way into its review—and I welcome the fact that the Foreign Office is in discussion with the World Service to review the situation. What is needed, however, is a full reversal of the proposed cuts.

Let me deal with funding. Since its inauguration, the World Service has been funded by the Foreign Office. This will end in 2014 when responsibility will be transferred to the BBC. During the intervening four years, the budget is to be reduced from £241 million to £212 million a year. Taking into account inflation, that is a 16% real- terms cut. Last autumn’s spending review announced that the overall FCO budget would fall by 24%. However, a closer look shows that, once the World Service and the British Council are taken out of the equation, the actual cut in the Foreign Office budget is a shade under 10%.

In my judgement and in the opinion of the Select Committee, a 16% cut in the World Service budget, compared with 10% in the Foreign Office budget, is disproportionate. I sympathise with the director of the World Service who argued that the service had to some extent been singled out. In his defence, the Foreign Secretary told us that he did not regard the cuts to the World Service as being disproportionate. He argues that the World Service proportion of the FCO overall budget had been kept at its 2007-08 level through to 2013-14.

There seems to be some disagreement over the figures. The World Service tells us that, using the FCO’s baseline of 2007-08, when the World Service had 16% of the budget, it does not keep the same proportion, but declines to 15.6% in 2013-14. That 0.4% difference might not sound much, but it amounts to £6.6 million a year of the World Service budget, which would be enough to save a number of services.

In response, the Government say that they “do not recognise” the World Service calculations. So, in an effort to explain the difference and resolve the dispute between the World Service and the Foreign Office, I dug into the figures. I discovered that they were produced by the House of Commons Library. On digging a bit further, I found that the Library stands by the figures as they are based on the FCO’s own resource accounts and letters to the Committee from the Foreign Secretary and the permanent secretary. Quite how the FCO can say that it does not recognise the World Service figures is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps the Minister will explain the figures further in his reply.

Those are the problems. What are the solutions? I am advised that the additional funds required to retain the Mandarin, Hindi and Arabic services, about which the Foreign Affairs Committee expressed concern, amount to between £3 million and £4 million per annum, which is less than the discrepancy between the World Service figures and those of the Foreign Office. The Committee does not believe that there should be any cuts at all, but believes that if there are to be some cuts it would not be a stupid decision to focus on a small number of priority services, to allocate a relative pinprick in terms of public expenditure, and to reverse the decisions on Mandarin, Hindi and Arabic using the unallocated £6.6 million.

Many Members, and witnesses from outside the House, have suggested that the huge and growing DFID budget could be used to make up the shortfall in the World Service budget. That course is subject to two constraints. First, although it might have been permissible before the International Development Act 2002 came into effect, the Act states that any funding by DFID should be used for the reduction of poverty. Secondly, DFID funding must comply with OECD guidelines to become official development assistance. Therein lies the problem. There is a limit to exactly how much a broadcaster’s output can be described as official development assistance or as reducing poverty, and I understand that that limit has been reached.

Others have suggested that a way around the problem would be to slice a few million quid off the DFID budget and give the money to the Foreign Office for onward transmission to the World Service. That suggestion runs into the difficulty of meeting the United Nations target that 0.7% of GDP should be spent on international development. However, the House will welcome an announcement by the Secretary of State for International Development, who, following discussions between us, wrote to me on 13 May stating that he intended to make a grant to the World Service Trust and put his Department’s relationship with the trust on a more strategic basis. The trust is the charitable arm of the World Service, focusing on development. He believes that he can significantly expand its operations, increasing development outcomes and poverty reduction. That is an extremely helpful development. I congratulate the Secretary of State and his colleagues in the Department and thank him for his personal involvement, and I hope that the Foreign Office will be equally responsive.

Following the tabling and publishing of the motion last week the Government published a fairly emphatic rejection of our report, and it is with some surprise that I now learn that they intend to accept the motion, which calls on them to review the decision to cut the service by 16%. Several key Select Committee Chairmen, a former Foreign Secretary and other senior Members of Parliament support the motion because of the widespread concerns that I have raised.

In its report on the BBC, which was published today, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee strongly endorses the Foreign Affairs Committee’s report, which means that two Select Committee reports have unanimously expressed concern. I must tell the Minister that it would be a mistake to undertake a review and then to take no further action. If that does happen, the FAC will return to the subject.

The World Service is important. It is a national asset and a jewel in the crown, and it has an unrivalled reputation throughout the world. It is no surprise that Kofi Annan described it as

“perhaps Britain’s greatest gift to the world”.

In those circumstances, I urge the House to support the motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will try to be brief, Mr Deputy Speaker.

It is a pleasure to follow the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), who introduced our report so ably. Let me underline what he said at the end of his speech. If the Government allow the motion to be passed this afternoon but prove to have had no intention of taking its wording seriously, the House will definitely revisit the issue—and in a different mood from the one it has adopted today.

I believe that there is virtual unanimity in this country about the importance of the BBC World Service. Where do people who live in totalitarian and authoritarian regimes and have no access to free media obtain the truth? If they mentioned two or three sources, one of them would be the BBC. The BBC provides the best possible image for this country, and I think it was very foolish of the Government to present proposals that would lead to reductions in the services of the World Service and in its audience share.

Reference has already been made to cuts in language services. Perhaps the Minister will clarify something that is puzzling me. The tone of the response to our report from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office implies some lack of convergence and consensus with the BBC World Service and its management in regard to facts and interpretation. It appears from the wording of the report and the responses to it that there is some tension and frustration within the FCO about some of the things that we have said and been told.

Let me ask a specific question. When the World Service was told that it must reduce its budget significantly—I understand that at one point it proposed to close up to 13 language services—what was the Government’s response? Is it true that they said that that was far too large a number and that a smaller number must be reduced, but with disproportionate cuts in those services? We now have the absurd situation of a 10 million loss of audience in India. We also have the absurd difficulties with BBC Arabic to which the Chairman of the Committee referred.

In recent years the World Service has introduced an Arabic television service, which is very popular, and a Persian television service, which is extremely popular and very important in a country that is as important to us as Iran. It has also developed a number of digital and online services, which cost much more than the radio services that are being slashed as a result of these disproportionate cuts. Both the present Government and their predecessor are committed to recognising the importance of those Arabic and Persian television services and the potential establishment of an Urdu television service, which we have discussed with Ministers in this and the last Government, and which might have a significant impact on a country as important to us as Pakistan. Is it not part of the wielding of our “soft power” and our promotion of this country’s values—is it not in our national interests?—not to cut the World Service’s radio services in order to finance that expansion, but to recognise that the World Service is a vital priority for British policy projection?

I am not arguing that the World Service should simply do what the Government want; one of its great benefits is its independence. However, I fear that we have created what is potentially the worst of both worlds. We are drastically reducing the World Service’s footprint globally. As the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) made clear in his intervention, in three or four years’ time one tabloid newspaper or another will ask why, for instance, we should be financing languages in Africa that no one in this country understands, rather than paying to have the best “X Factor”-style television programme—or some other style of programme—that is under threat.

In one of our Committee’s final recommendations, we expressed deep concern about whether the BBC World Service could rely on the BBC as a whole to protect it under the new arrangements. One of the consequences of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s relationship with the World Service is that there has been parliamentary accountability and scrutiny of the World Service. I was serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the 1990s when attempts were made under the John Birt regime to get the World Service under the control of the BBC. Those proposals were dropped because Parliament was not happy about the possibility of the values and ethos of the World Service being undermined, and I do not believe that we have the necessary assurances in place now on preserving the ethos and values of the World Service under the future arrangements.

I hope the House resoundingly supports this very important motion. The fact that it has broad support is a great tribute to the Chairman of our Committee—and to the other Select Committee Chairs who have put their names to it, as well as the rest of us who are signatories. The Government must listen and introduce a speedy review—not a review that will take a long time so that the cuts the World Service will have to introduce are irreversible. We must have a swift review with fast results, and we must assert that the World Service is the jewel in the crown and will remain so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lidington]

One of the challenges that the World Service management faces is to draw up what I hope will be very ambitious and detailed plans to deliver a reduction in administrative and other inessential costs that match commitments of the sort that Government Departments throughout Whitehall, including the FCO, are already having to make. The BBC World Service has announced that it is committed to a significant reduction. We have not seen details of that, nor are we entitled to do so. It is an independent organisation, quite properly so, although the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee are of course free to investigate further.

I hope that the World Service will choose to make those plans public and will look to take advantage of the opportunities that will arise from the new arrangements for the relationship between the World Service and the BBC as a whole to merge and share costs where possible. For example, arrangements to combine studios for the World Service and other parts of the BBC would seem to be a sensible way forward. Indeed, the BBC has indicated that it is considering that in the context of the new arrangements.

[Mike Gapes]

Is the Minister aware that the BBC World Service spends proportionately less on human resources, finance and IT than the FCO? Is he also aware that there has been a reduction of about 32% in the management costs of the World Service since 2009?

[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Gentleman, perhaps uncharacteristically, is choosing to overlook the fact that the FCO is responsible for well over 100 operations in different countries overseas and that in those circumstances the requirements of currency operations and IT add up to quite a considerable overhead. I welcome the public commitment of the World Service to a significant reduction in its administrative costs, and I am sure that the House looks forward to seeing how it proposes to deliver that.